"Well?" Tonks asked with shining eyes. "What do you think?"
Sirius picked up the invitation she had slaved over and he frowned down at it.
"They really have these things, these Best-Kept Suburban Lawn contests? This is believable?"
"Yes," she said sniggering as Sirius handed it to Remus for inspection. "I did a bit of research into contest records to pick a title that sounded believable. But how does it look?"
Sirius and Remus exchanged bewildered looks and Sirius just shrugged.
"It looks very nice, Tonks," Remus said kindly, passing it back to her. "How are you transporting it?"
"Well, I thought about sending it by post," she said reasonably. "But I would have to be careful where I sent it, so that it was properly postmarked. And then I thought, well, maybe this place would deliver by hand, right? I could easily have someone slip it into their post delivery. We've got Squib friends in the service, or there's always Arabella Figg. She could put it into their mail slot while they're sleeping. They'd never suspect a thing."
Remus nodded, saying it was a very good idea. Sirius rather thought that old Figgy was having a lot asked of her lately, from keeping Dung in line to keeping an eye on Harry. At least the task of slipping a letter into a mail slot was a fairly small ask by comparison. Sirius wished he could be allowed to do such a small, simply task – anything to get out of the house. But he knew that he would never be granted such a request.
"Is the ink dry?" Remus asked.
Tonks nodded, carefully placing the invitation into a thick, official-looking envelope.
"Can I at least lick the adhesive?" he asked bitterly, and Tonks gave him a knowing look as she handed him the envelope. It was a pathetic request, he knew, but as he tasted the bitterness of the adhesive on his tongue, it felt good just to be a small part of the rescue mission of his godson.
His hands shook as he gave Tonks back the envelope, wishing there were something more, some other small thing he could do. But Tonks took the envelope up to the drawing room for Dedalus to deliver it to Arabella.
"It'll be alright, Sirius," Remus said softly. "Harry will come away alright. He'll be here soon."
Sirius nodded, starting the kettle. That was one thing he could do for the order – make tea. Tonks would be back downstairs any minute, but Sirius wanted to be alone. He wanted a safe place to cry, because all he could think about was how little he had been able to do already. The little he had done in the last war, as he saw it, was cancelled out by how much he was to blame for the losses of all the people he had cared about most.
"Yes," he said, smiling weakly and sitting down as he put tea bags in the cups. "Yes, soon."
"Sirius," Remus said softly, "I know how much you want him here, but he needs to go back to Hogwarts. You know that, don't you?"
Sirius put on his best grin, the one he had used fooling girls back in the day when all he wanted to do was walk away from them.
"Of course I know that, Moony," he said. "I'm not totally oblivious to reality, you know."
Just because he lived in memories. Just because he had a hard time holding the moment, the here and now. It didn't mean he was totally out of touch with the present.
But Sirius would have given anything to have Harry stay with him, keep him company. It would be like living with James again, except no parents, no rules, and plenty of dark and dangerous things in the house to entertain themselves with. Of course, Remus would drop in frequently to spoil their fun, but that would only make it even more like old times.
But he could not say such thoughts out loud, not to anybody, because no matter how badly he wanted them, he knew he could not want them. He knew Harry had to go to school, that Harry had to be with his friends and learn, just as Sirius had done at his age.
"Right," Tonks said, coming back through. "I'm off for now. Remus, you're going on the rescue, right?"
"Yes," Remus said softly.
Sirius bit the inside of his cheek as he tried not to be angry at Remus for his luck. Dumbledore thought that it would be good to have a couple of familiar faces there, and so he selected Remus and Mad-Eye, even though Remus hadn't volunteered like just about everyone else in the Order. Oh, he'd wanted to go, naturally. But no doubt he'd thought Sirius would have been offended had Remus volunteered to go.
Not that it mattered. Remus was still going, and Sirius was still staying where he was.
As Order members left to live their own lives, get sleep, have dinner or a drink at the pub, Sirius found himself waiting for Remus to go to bed, pouring himself a bit of firewhiskey.
"I'll take one of those, if you don't mind," Remus said wearily.
Sirius was mildly surprised. Remus rarely drank, but Sirius poured him a glass anyway, pushing it across the table to Remus's waiting hand.
"You don't have to stay up and babysit me, you know," Sirius said, trying not to sound too bitter. "I don't hate myself and my situation enough to harm myself."
Remus tensed, and Sirius instantly regret the word choice. In his mind's eye he could easily recall the small, fragile body of Gabriella in a hospital wing cot, unconscious, just before they sent her to France. Even knowing it was a memory, not real, his whole body ached to touch her, hold her, kiss her, heal her.
His hand squeezed the glass slightly, and he tried to remind himself that she was gone, that she wasn't coming back, and that it was his fault.
"Don't," Remus said firmly, and Sirius looked up, confused.
"I wasn't actually going to."
"I mean don't sit there blaming yourself," Remus said. Judging by the way Remus's jaw tightened, he'd spent a fair amount of time blaming himself for her death, too. "There wasn't anything anyone could have done."
"I could have saved her," Sirius said softly. "It's my fault. I ruined her, Moony."
"How?"
"By loving her."
Remus shook his head and took a sip of the firewhiskey. Sirius downed his own glass and poured another.
"Don't do this, Sirius, honestly," Remus said, reaching out for the bottle, but Sirius pulled it out of his reach, hugging it to his chest. "Look, nothing you did particularly helped her, but she was broken before you and she would have probably still struggled without you. If it wasn't Bellatrix, it would have been something else. She was…. Her troubles ran deeper than any of us can take credit for."
There was a ring of truth to that, but Sirius closed his eyes and he could still feel her breath on his mouth, the burning of her touch. He exhaled slowly and forcefully through his nose.
"If I could have just let her go," Sirius whispered, "Bellatrix would have left her alone. She would have been allowed to keep healing. And someday she might have been truly happy. But I couldn't…I couldn't let her go and I ruined her, Moony."
"Don't put it all on you," Remus said, with a surprisingly bitter laugh, and Sirius's eyes flew open again. Remus looked slightly sick as he gripped his glass with white knuckles. "Don't forget, I couldn't let her go either. And she was in Lily and James's wedding. Bellatrix didn't kill her because of you. She killed her because she was looking for information on the Order."
Sirius just shook his head, unable to keep himself from thinking that if his desire for her hadn't led Bellatrix to exert influence in the first place, they wouldn't have had such an easy time getting their claws into her. He knew Remus would say he was being silly, so he said nothing, swirling the cup around and around.
"Where d'you think she'd be now, if…."
If neither of them had touched her.
"Likely married to that therapist," Remus said hollowly. "With a few kids and everything she needed to be happy."
Sirius thought – or rather selfishly wished – that she wouldn't have really been happy. As much guilt as he felt for loving her, he would have hated for her to be happy with anyone but him. But then, the cynical voice in the back of his mind reminded him that she wasn't exactly happy with him, either.
"She was perfect," Sirius whispered. "Wasn't she?"
Remus said nothing for a long time, just staring at his mostly-empty glass. After a long silence he said, "Yes. Perfect."
"The way her hair smelled."
"Strawberries."
"Yeah. And how her skin was so pale it glowed."
"Mmm."
Remus's eyes were miles away, and Sirius knew that they were both recalling the perfection of her skin, the way it felt under trembling fingertips, the way it tasted, the warmth it exuded. Sirius closed his eyes, recalling with perfect clarity that day in his kitchen, the feel of her wrapped around him.
"What was it like?" Sirius said.
"What?"
"At the wedding."
"Sirius."
"Fucking her."
"Sirius, you don't want to have this talk."
"No, I do," he said, opening his eyes again to see that Remus now looked horrified and embarrassed. "I know it's not the sort of thing we've talked about since school, and I know you never liked to join in on those conversations, but this isn't like that. I…" He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply through his nostrils. "The only time I ever had her, she was being controlled. It wasn't…it wasn't really her, and I need to know…."
They sat in a long, tense, stiff silence and Sirius began to fear that he was pushing Remus too hard on a painful and sensitive topic for both of them. He worried Remus wouldn't want to speak about her ever again, never mind answering the question.
"It was all a bit of a blur," Remus finally said, scratching the back of his neck. "I'd definitely had too much to drink, and you know how just touching her seems to make the room spin even when you're sober."
Sirius hummed in agreement. He had loved that about her, how intoxicating and exciting it was just to be physically close to her. He'd never bothered wondering why. Once he'd assumed it was her vitality, when they first met, but that was before he knew how intent she was on dying.
"I remember," he continued, "that her body felt a bit cold to me. I remember that she felt…tight. Really tight." Sirius hummed again, and Remus continued, his voice shaking, "I remember that she hardly made a sound."
"Really?"
That seemed odd to Sirius, who recalled her moaning and gasping when he touched her, when he felt her. Was that a difference in men, or the fact that she was under Bellatrix's influence?
"Yeah. And I remember…when we kissed, it was like…like we were both hungry, desperate, and then in the morning…."
Sirius opened his eyes and saw Remus was wiping away tears hastily.
"She never loved me, Sirius," Remus said softly, pushing away an empty glass and standing. "I don't think she could, not after she met you. Even when she hated you, she loved you. I know you think you ruined her, but if you could have changed and she could have healed…."
"If."
"I know, it's a lot to have asked of either of you. But you two would have been so happy."
Sirius shivered as Remus left the room. He wanted to believe that, wanted to think that he hadn't totally destroyed the only woman he ever really loved. But after so many years, he couldn't.
The next night, Sirius fought the urge to pour himself another drink as the rescue party assembled in his kitchen. Chara also arrived early, sitting down with him at the long table as Mad-Eye gave them instructions and Tonks cut in periodically with cheeky comments. They'd just heard the words "Constant vigilance" for the fifth time when Remus pointed out that they were going to be quite late and possibly miss their window if they didn't get moving soon.
"Gone," Chara said, her word echoing in the nearly-empty kitchen. Sirius hummed in acknowledgement. "Remus said Harry live somewhere in Surrey?"
Sirius nodded. It didn't take much to recall that night two years ago, wanting just to have a glimpse of his godson before going off to track down Peter. He couldn't resist a look at Lily and James's boy. So eerie, in that darkness, how much Harry looked like James. For a moment he'd thought he was imagining him, that Harry couldn't possibly be Harry.
"He also said you two had a chat last night, wouldn't say what about, but he blushed and said he was worried about you, so I assume it was about Gabby."
Sirius shifted, not meeting her eyes as he thought of how Gabby looked at the last function they both went to, a Christmas party if he remembered correctly, and how beautiful she was when she smiled. He could recall what it felt like to hold her when they danced, how warm her body felt against his fingertips, how soft and small her hands felt in his.
"Just comparing," he said bitterly, with a forced ironic smile. "You know how we boys are."
"Doubtful," she said, her lips twitching. "Remus wouldn't have indulged that kind of thing, especially not about Gabby. He still worships her, you know."
Oh, he knew. Sirius could hardly blame Remus, and in spite of the kinship they felt over loving her, Sirius never stopped feeling jealous of the way Remus loved her. Pure, devoted, uncomplicated. If Sirius had just managed to love her that way everything would have been alright.
"I needed to know," Sirius said, scratching at a scorch mark on the table. Perhaps it was left over from a curse his mother shot at him at dinner once. "You knew that they'd slept together?"
"Of course," Chara said. "We talked about it not long after she died. He feels the guilt too, you know."
Sirius snorted and said, "What has he got to feel guilty about? He's not the reason the Death Eaters already had claws in her."
Chara's gray eyes were sad and far away as she sat in silence for a long moment. Finally, she looked at Sirius and said, "Remember how I told you that my brother and Vin and Irving all went looking for her when she went missing?" Sirius nodded. "Remus didn't."
"Remus had other things on his mind."
He felt guilty for that as well, knowing that if he'd just been the Secret-Keeper like they'd agreed Remus wouldn't have gone through all that loss at once, and he wouldn't have been left all alone.
"Yes," Chara said softly. "And you're right, that's probably why he didn't go after her. But he's convinced himself that it must have been some latent bitterness, trying to get back at her for rejecting him."
Sirius blinked and said, "But that's mad! I mean, this is Remus we're talking about. He's not got a vindictive bone in his body, and I can't imagine him ever, ever wanting something bad to happen to Gabby, even subconsciously."
"No, but the guilt won't go away. If he'd gone after her, he'd probably be dead now, too. And if you hadn't loved her, she would still probably be dead."
Sirius felt a stab in his chest at this honest and probably truthful assessment.
"If I'd loved her right," Sirius said slowly, pointedly. "If I'd changed—"
She was actually smirking at him. He felt the urge to hit her, but he didn't move, and she said, "Sirius, if you could have changed, you would have. You wanted her."
He still wanted her, more than anything else he had ever wanted in life. Perhaps Chara was right, and perhaps he never could have changed, but if that thought was supposed to make him feel better, less guilty, than it wasn't very well designed. It took absolutely no effort at all to recall the image of Gabriella plunging a butcher knife into her stomach at his cousin's request, seeing her collapse in a growing pool of her own blood on his kitchen floor, feeling the utter helplessness as he tried to stop the bleeding long enough to get help, long enough to keep her alive.
"Sirius?"
They turned their heads to see Molly Weasley poking her nose into the kitchen.
"Molly."
"Oh, hello, Chara!" Molly said brightly. "Sirius, the meeting will be starting soon, and I'd like to get a few things on before it starts because they'll need some time to marinate."
"Of course," Sirius said, feeling his face fall into a familiar, cold, expressionless set, and Chara's eyes narrowed at him.
"Is there anything I can help with, Molly?" Chara asked.
"No, no, the real help will be needed after the meeting. Are you not sticking around again?"
Chara once again made her apologies, said that she would be unable to make the dinner as she had a deadline for her publisher and really wouldn't make it if she stayed too long. Molly expressed, as usual, what a pity it was, and Sirius ignored them both, scratching away at the scorch mark and thinking of the way Gabriella's eyes glowed in Lily and James's sitting room not an hour before Harry's birth, as he pressed her against the wall and kissed her, swearing to himself silently that he would never fail her again.
Such a brief and beautiful moment that had been. And recalling it left him feeling nothing but emptiness.
